What to do with all our stuff?

[Slow_boat]

The plan is to rent our house out and go sailing. We'll probably be home to work in the winters, when we can rent a place to live for six months.

What do people do with all their stuff?

Swmbo is a hoarder but when we're away we don't miss all our possessions. A lot can go on ebay, freebay or charity and we reckon that stuff we want to leave for years until we come back for good can store in the loft with a lock on, but what about furniture and other stuff we'll be wanting in the winters? We don't want to have to furnish a house every six months then have the same problem again. Where to leave the car, clothes, for instance?

 

[sarabande]

How about a 20ft container in a specialist storage yard ? You can get a car in with a bit of a wiggle, and the containers are v secure and CCTVd. Some even have aircon.

I think that Liz1 has experience of container storage. Worth a PM ?

 

[Downsman]

I've been going away for 16 years +, sometimes for up to 2 years at a time. I don't own a house, I'm a full time liveaboard, but I kept some things when I sold up ashore and I've found the cheapest and in my case the most secure, was to find a small, private storage facility. I keep my motorcycle, tools, winter clothing and all the gear I don't take away with me in a 20x6 (approx.) sea container which is one of a few in a large barn on a local farm.

It's a working farm so security is excellent, always someone about and I don't pay the high prices the big commercial companies charge. I found my storage via a free local newspaper, the farmer was advertising caravan storage.
Might be worth a try in your case.

 

[Slow_boat]

Good idea. I'll ask around the village.

I tried a big storage company. They want about £50 pw for a unit the size of a domestic garage.

 

[Downsman]

Yep, I was offered a wardrobe size container for a small fortune too by one of the big companies... Mine is £120 a month, secure, dry and even meeces proof .
Well worth it to me, I can go away and forget about it.

 

[sarabande]

I'd agree with Downsman if you can find a local farmer; much much cheaper.

Would it be useful to buy a wheeled storage trailer so that you can tow it to the hosue and back rather than move kit, item by item ?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=storage+trailer&_sop=16

I reckon you could get a secure trailer on wheels - which will mean that your friendly farmer doesn't have to worry about planning permission.

 

[Slow_boat]

Now there's an idea; something the size of a Luton van would do the job, and no need to worry about MoT etc. Insurance may be a problem, though.

May get damp,too.

Worth looking into. Thanks.

 

[Hadenough]

Don't even think container if you are storing soft furnishings and clothes, they suffer from horrible condensation. Go to one of the big storage companies and negotiate. We have a "room" as they like to call them, with most of the stuff from a two bed cottage and all of my tools for just over a grand a year. Let them know you are in for the long term, it makes a huge difference.

 

[Carmel2]

Flog the lot and see what happens..........

 

[Slow_boat]

A grand a year is to much out of the cruising budget............

 

[ripvan1]

A grand a year is to much out of the cruising budget............

20 squid a week, that's coupla packets less fags if you smoke, few bottles of wine less a week if you drink, or a meal ashore less a week if you eat

Cheap at half the price, sell your present car and buy a throw away car for £300/400 for when you're home.

 

[Hadenough]

A grand a year is to much out of the cruising budget............

Then you'll have to get rid of it all. Believe me! I've researched this to death and unless you've got friends with space you can have for free or very cheap there is no option. Containers in the open are a disaster for household goods, if you can find any within a building they might be ok but I found that they were just as expensive as storage units.

 

[PhilipH]

We have been "away" for nearly five years. We cleared the house for rental as furnished, "loaned" various tools (e.g. Chainsaw) to friends, and put precious stuff into storage at £75 a month. We were not sure how long we would be "away" so put far too much stuff away. You really have to be ruthless with clearing out. 'Nice to keep' means get rid of it. You can replace with new when you need to and save on storage costs.
Oh yes, this year we were told by our house letting agent we needed to let the house as unfurnished. Guess what. More bleeding stuff into storage. Doh.

 

[Petronella]

What we do is...

Agree with most previous comments. We rented the house furnished so that we didn't have to store all that, now well worn, furniture. Then the rest of our possessions were ruthlessly sorted - children took their stuff, rubbish went to the tip, most clothes went to charity and a few prized possessions went to friends who wanted them in their house.

The rest we store in a sturdy wooden crate 7' x 7' x 5'. It is kept in a vast warehouse with many others all stacked by forklift on top of each other. We can access it at no cost whenever we want to get stuff out or put more stuff in. You can get an awful lot of non furniture stuff into one of these crates. We live in the northwest so prices are cheap - I imagine it would cost a lot more further south. For our crate we pay a few pence under £1 a day including VAT and admin charges. So, if you just want storage and it doesn't matter where in the country that storage is you could just take your stuff up in a van and leave it in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria! See http://www.steelesremovals.co.uk/self-storage - no other interest in this friendly company other than as satisfied customers.

 

[Bertramdriver]

Agree with most previous comments. We rented the house furnished so that we didn't have to store all that, now well worn, furniture. Then the rest of our possessions were ruthlessly sorted - children took their stuff, rubbish went to the tip, most clothes went to charity and a few prized possessions went to friends who wanted them in their house.

The rest we store in a sturdy wooden crate 7' x 7' x 5'. It is kept in a vast warehouse with many others all stacked by forklift on top of each other. We can access it at no cost whenever we want to get stuff out or put more stuff in. You can get an awful lot of non furniture stuff into one of these crates. We live in the northwest so prices are cheap - I imagine it would cost a lot more further south. For our crate we pay a few pence under £1 a day including VAT and admin charges. So, if you just want storage and it doesn't matter where in the country that storage is you could just take your stuff up in a van and leave it in Barrow in Furness, Cumbria! See http://www.steelesremovals.co.uk/self-storage - no other interest in this friendly company other than as satisfied customers.

Agree totally. Be ruthless with furniture, merciless with clothing and carefull with heirlooms. There's nothing more depressing than opening a crate after two years and realising the fabulous jacket you had now looks so out of fashion not even the oxfam shop would take it. In the time you are absent 90 % of your stuff will become mouldy or redundant. Furniture is a mega waste of space and when you're travelling days are over and you are ready to settle down, your much loved furniture will be in the skip within weeks and Ikea will have slipped in under the front door.
Sell it, give it away or dump it. Don't waste money on storage. Instead put the money you would have spent into a self administered resettlement fund.

 

[vyv_cox]

A friend was posted to Australia for several years. He let his house out but made a partition in the garage, behind which he kept the stuff he really wanted, including a partly rebuilt MGB.

 

[jeanne]

When we sold our house in UK, we decided that as we didn´t know how our future was going to pan out, or how long we would be living on the boat, we would sell absolutely everything. We kept only a few treasured possesions in my sisters garage. I can´t tell you how liberating it was to get rid of all the detritus of 30 odd years. Unfortunately, since settling here in Spain, in a larger house, we seem to have gathered just as much stuff or more than we had before! How did that happen??!!!

 

[Ashman]

We left the UK in May. In the three months prior to leaving we'd tried to sell all the things we'd never need again on Ebay, not very successfully! You have to be ruthless and just give a lot of stuff away to charity shops etc. All the surplus boat stuff we took to a boat jumble, sold most of it at a surprising price but bought some more 'bargains' for the boat. Fortunately a relative had space for our car on their drive although we've yet to decide to either SWORN(?) or sell it but as its so old depreciation is no longer a factor.
We placed the house with a letting agent who found a tenant willing to sign a 12 month contract and then shifted all our furniture into an internal store in a storage company's secure dry premises. A few years ago we had used a container store outside and everything either got too hot and dried out, the furniture to the extent it cracked, or in the winter damp and mouldy. The internal store is expensive and you have to factor in insurance....its normally quoted as an extra and difficult to source on the open market but our marine insurers came to the rescue with a good deal.
We have a little property so the rental income only provides a small income after storage costs, agent fees, insurance and routine maintenance expenditure have been taken into account - the taxman might want his share as well.

We are now in the Canaries and I'm sitting in the cockpit in shorts and tee shirt writing this.......it is warm and sunny so we won't be coming back in a hurry.

 

[Simondjuk]

In no time at all, storage costs can amount to more than the new purchase costs of items such as furniture and electrical/white goods, let alone their minuscule second-hand value. If you find it difficult to be ruthless, search eBay for completed listings of items you intend to store. Once you realise just how little value most if it has, giving it away or taking it to the dump will become substantially easier.

 

[captain3366]

We sectioned our loft off with a locking door and stored lots up there. Normal rental contracts don`t allow the tenant to use the loft. The main problem is you can only gain access when the tenants change over. we also have a large shed in mothers garden.